to the King's Christmas niessage has become so closely associated with the annual festivities that a Christmas Day will, in the English monarch, if the day has to pass without them, King George V made it an event of the year, and memory likes to dwell on the fact, that' the homeliest of the year's festivities' Drought the British Commonwealth together in spirit as it were (o a huge family fireside while the father addressed his good wishes to them all. "If the present king's reference "tradition so personal" to King George adumbrates a discontinuance of a wholly delight ful custom, it will be deeply regretted, though the circumstances every sympathy wilt be felt with the reasons which may make such step necessary, In Shanghai it was particularly, pleasing to hear Hix Majesty, especially in times Stich og these, for it brought to Britons realization of the fact that though at present they are rot within the confines of Empire, they are still bers of it. There were many who heard the message direct, but others had to depend upon a relay. 'To those responsible' for bringing iW'to Shanghai by that method, those, who have not yet secured machines of wide enough range will be as grateful this year as they have been in the past. It is one of those little acts which performed in so international a community as Shanghai have about them a peculiar gracious~ ness. If, the practice is ultimately abandoned. and it Is earnestly hoped it will not be, may it Not be urged that some adequate substitute might be arranged, that someone, as far above polities os the King, should undertake the broadcasting of his message? It seems that such a personage should not, in these days, be very.
ard to find,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.